This is my first Crichton since the Andromeda Strain written so many years ago. Another reason to ignore the professional critics who have not been terribly kind to Crichton in the past few years. I really liked this book. It has a marvelous blend of science, information and a good plot that keeps the pages turning.It’s interesting that many of the reviews I read focused on the aircraft industry. I think the book is more about the media and it’s relentless pursuit of the visual and the sound bite at the expense of truth and the whole picture more than about airplanes.Enroute from Hong Kong to Denver, a brand new Norton-22, a plane clearly modeled on the Boeing 747, pitches and dives like a porpoise before being brought under control. The violent maneuvers kill three passengers and injures 56 others. . The airline's VP in charge of quality assurance — Casey Singleton — has to find out why, before more passengers and the airline's future go into a tailspin. As always in Crichton's expert hands, readers learn a lot about science while becoming enmeshed in the power-plays, office politics, and pressures of the global market and American jobs. Her job is complicated, because, as we gradually learn, powers within the company are trying to manipulate her and to embarrass the company so that the president of the company can be forced out in favor of another. Casey is saddled with a Norton family nephew who turns out to be a spy for one of the other company officers. We learn a great deal about aircraft manufacture and design — I must admit to really loving the technical detail — as Casey tries to figure out why the cockpit reports of turbulence differ from physical evidence of a “commanded slat deployment,” something, that even had it occurred at altitude and high speed should not have caused the plane to go out-of-control the way it appears to have done.Crichton obviously doesn’t like lawyers, their stoolies (an ex-FAA employee who testifies for the plaintiffs in injury suits figures prominently in the media’s desire to create a nasty story) nor the media, and a character clearly modeled after Mike Wallace has few redeeming qualities. At one point Casey is to be interviewed by the Wallace character, Marty Reardon, and a company PR person comes by to help her prepare a little. “There’s only one more thing I can tell you, Katherine. You work in a complex business. If you try to explain that complexity to Marty, you’ll be frustrated. You’ll feel he isn’t interested. He’ll probably cut you off. Because he isn’t interested. A lot of people complain television lacks focus. But that’s the nature of the medium. Television’s not about information at all. Information is active, engaging. Television is passive. Information is disinterested, objective. Television is emotional. It’s entertainment. . . . [Marty’s:] paid to exercise his one reliable talent: provoking people, getting them to make an emotional outburst, to lose their temper, to say something outrageous. He doesn’t really want to know about airplanes. He wants a media moment.”Casey’s father was a journalist and an old friend of his remarks at the end of the book, “Used to be — in the old days-- the media image roughly corresponded to reality. But now it’s all reversed. The media image is the reality, and by comparison day-to-day life seems to lack excitement. So now day-to-day life is false, and the media image is true. Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It’s bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back.”
From Publishers Weekly...The event that launches the story, conceived long before TWA Flight 800's last takeoff, is an airline disaster. Why did a passenger plane "porpoise"-pitch and dive repeatedly-enroute from Hong Kong to Denver, killing four and injuring 56? That's what Casey Singleton, v-p for quality assurance for Norton Aircraft, has to find out fast. If Norton's design is to blame, its imminent deal with China may collapse, and the huge company along with it. With Casey as his unsubtle focus-she's one of the few Crichton heroines, an all-American gal who's more plot device than character-Crichton works readers through a brisk course in airline mechanics and safety. The accretion of technical detail, though fascinating, makes for initially slow reading that speeds up only fitfully when Casey is menaced by what seem to be union men angry over the Chinese deal. But as she uncovers numerous anomalies about the accident, and as high corporate intrigue and a ratings-hungry TV news team enter the picture, the plot complicates and suspense rises, peaking high above the earth in an exciting re-creation of the flight. It's possible that Crichton has invented a new subgenre here-the industrial thriller-despite elements (video-generated clues, for one) recycled from his earlier work. It's certain that, while this is no Jurassic Park, he's concocted another slick, bestselling, cinema-ready entertainment.I liked the book better than the above reviewer. I was a bit afraid to read it because I have always feared flying and I thought this might turn me off it forever, but it's more about how well planes are built and how safe they are than what is wrong with planes. It was actually kind of reassuring from that point of view.
What do You think about Airframe (1997)?
Before I read this, I’d never read a book by Michael Crichton. As he’s one of the bestselling authors of recent decades, that might come as a surprise. I thought it was time to correct that omission. As someone with an interest in aviation (I’m a fan of trashy TV programmes like Air Crash Investigation, and also the excellent Flaps podcast), I thought Airframe was the perfect option to fill the gap.Airframe is advertised as “a fast-paced, adrenaline-fuelled thriller from the master of high-concept storytelling”. I have some objections to this description: I don’t think it’s fast-paced, adrenaline fuelled, a thriller, or high-concept storytelling. I found it interminably dull.This may be advertised as a thriller, but there were only about three short chase passages during which I could – at even the most generous push of my imaginations – be described as even vaguely interested, let alone thrilled; and those passages played only the most minor of roles in the plot as a whole.The story, such as it was, really described nothing more than a particularly stressful week in the life of a dull woman who works for an aircraft company, combining well-rehearsed plot devices about a woman in a male-dominated work environment with well-rehearsed plot devices describing the conflicted life of a journalist. And it is most certainly not worth sticking with 400 pages of this to reach the damp squib of an ending.Many have criticised Airframe for containing far too much technical detail about the mechanistic of flight; actually, my pre-existing interest in the topic made those sections some of the more interesting bits. But it’s certainly true that pages of technical description does little to heighten the jeopardy of the plot, considering that this is marketed as a thriller.All of which is not to say that the book is bad, per sé: It’s just exceptionally bland. Much like magnolia paint, it’s dull but inoffensive, nobody’s favourite, but disliked very few.I am afraid I am one of the few. I like books which have some sort of impact. This has none. If you like your books bland, you’ll probably get on very well with Airframe, but probably not with me. I struggled to finish it, and cannot recommend it.This review was originally posted at http://sjhoward.co.uk/archive/2013/02...
—Simon Howard
This book is about an airplane. It is solely about an airplane.After reading this, I have learnt far too much about the engine, dashboard, and wing mechanics of a fictional aircraft, as well as the various backgrounds of the fifty-something characters that Crichton introduces over the course of the story. He is completely unable to advance the plot without another member being added to the cast; annoyingly, each character has all of the depth of a sitcom character, with the stereotypical receptionist, engineer, CEO, lawyer, etc, all fulfilling their bland, trite roles in the story. I reiterate that the plot revolves completely around the crash of an airplane, which is only described for one chapter. Crichton fails to make the crash sound dangerous, scary, or thrilling in any way, leaving readers confused and apathetic towards the sole plot point of the book. The protagonist, a woman who is so bland I cannot even remember her name, spends the novel attempting to investigate the crash, assisted by her incompetent, standoffish, fresh-out-of-law-school assistant. She does this by talking to the various stereotypical, interchangeable workers of the plant for hours on end. Crichton must have had a traumatic experience with an engineer in his childhood, because his portrayal of them veers between insulting and cartoonish throughout the book. Over the course of the investigation, it is made crystal clear that (view spoiler)[ the captain (sort of) (hide spoiler)]
—Charlie Rule
This is the first and last time I read a book from Crichton. The story is weak since the beginning. Everything is predictable. An example? a) The American woman sees the pilot leaving the cockpit, b) the crew leaves the airport in a hurry, like fleeing the scene, c) The airplane shows no defect, d)The flight instructor swears that it can't be human error because Chang is the best pilot he's ever seen... it's so hard to figure it out? If you need to go from page 10 (the incident) to page 340 (when Casey finally figures it all out) to get a clue, this book is for you. Otherwise, try something else. The characters are weak and artificial and since Crichton wants to show his famous research skills, every character is unnatural, they don't speak, they lecture. Good people are really good, shy and well-intentioned. Bad people are mean, greedy and false. Chinese are detail-oriented, Korean are hardworking, the test pilot had to be a bold Texan, of course, the engineer lives for his plane, journalists are hollow, etc. etc. He only forgot a couple of corrupt politicians to complete the plot! My recommendation? Stay away! This airframe will take you straight to boredom!
—Piero Maggiani
